blueprints

Converging Wor[l]ds | 29
through the land, leaving their traces etched on canyon walls. Elders who
have never learned to read or write carry vast archives within their memories.
Elders who create epic stories during wintertime at the kitchen table
or on drives to the nearby border town Laundromats are poets too, if one
just listens.
in navajo thought, language is sacred.
In Navajo thought, language is sacred. Language, when performed as a
ceremonial function, attempts to create harmony, enact change, and metaphorically
transform time and space for those directly involved in the presence
of a song/poem. Through this activity, the lineage between past, present,
and future is “reconnected”—replanted, watered, grown, and harvested
to counter what is considered inharmonious. Navajo philosophy does not
divorce good language usage such as that found in poetry and/or prayer
from alignment with a deeper cosmological/spiritual knowing. Navajo ceremonies
use language to bind the universe and self and restore hózhó (balance,
peace, harmony) to a person or a family. This spiritual restoration
occurs when a medicine person recites songs/poems drawn from cultural
memory—a language that brings forth healing to the participants in a particular
ceremony. Thus, ours is a culture that still, according to Navajo
author Irvin Morris “holds the creative use of language in high regard.”
I was not privy to what Phil had witnessed “across the river” that may
have sparked his intense passion for wanting to heighten poetic awareness
among “the kids” in those particular communities. I agreed with his sentiment
that there was a need for the youth to seize the path of story and
knowledge and claim it as their own. I had been an example of such a
youth. At the time I stood with Phil looking across the border between
worlds, I was compiling my poetry manuscript, which later developed into
my first book, Shapeshift. I knew from my experience growing up through
the school systems, both on and off the reservation, that many Native kids
inherited, by default, negative perceptions about their abilities to transcend
history’s bonds and continue the journey toward strengthening their communities
from within. Native kids were somehow perceived as being stuck
in two places at once, unwilling or unable to move toward a contemporary
worldview, always in conflict with self and duty to tribe and family.